• home
• benefits of having a guide
• why touring in Rome?
• tips for Rome visitors
• contact

Rome has had 3 city walls: the first is the so called " wall of Romulus" built in the VII century BC. The second are the Servian walls built in the IV century after that the dictator Futius Camillus conquered the etruscan city of Vei.Actually we do not have so much of this second belt around Rome but you can see a large section of it as you enter the Termini train station platform. Another location is on the Aventine Hill on Viale Aventino, near the Pyramid of Caius Cestius: its a small section, not nearly as impressive as the section at the station. The original wall built during the republican age was 11 kilometres in circumference and about 10 metres ( 33 feet ) high.

The walls we see today around Rome are the last built almost at the end of the roman empire: they are the Aurelian walls and they bring the name of the emperor who wanted them.
These walls were built with bricks and very quickly ( 19 kilometres of length - 11 miles-, 3,5 metres thick, 6 metres high, and 4 years spent in construction, from 271 to 275 AD ) Why ? Because the Barbarians were almost literally at the gate ready to enter Rome. The best examples of this work are Porta san Sebastian,along the Appian Way, porta san Giovanni and porta Ardeatina. If you stay in a hotel on via Veneto you have an excellent opportunity to examine this wall up close, also because you will see that these massive arches are delimiting the modern Rome and the Borghese park.

The walls took all the seven hills and part of Trastevere. At the entrance to the harbor of Rome, two great towers once protected the entrance to Rome by water. There were 381 towers, placed at intervals of 100 roman feet ( 29,70 metres ) to provide vantage points from which to observe and repel the approach of an enemy.
Emperors Arcadius and Honorius, fearing an advance of Alaric and his Goths, restored and heightened the walls to 15 feet in 402 AD.

These walls are some of the most impressive left from ancient world. Some of the arched galleries and a concrete wall walk above them still survive today.

In addition to the merlons that formed the battlements, there were firing slits within the gallery sections of the walls. These formidable walls included a concrete core that allowed them to survive through the ages.

top